Wisteria

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Wisteria by Adalyn Grace

It is the last night Life and Fate will spend together. Life has extended her life to be with her immortal husband but she is bone weary and knows it’s time to move on and let her spirit be reincarnated, and she’s excited for it. Her brother by marriage, Death, will help her, but neither of them knows what will happen to her memories. Fate tells Death he cannot take his wife from him, but Death follows where he is called. Fate promises Life, “I will not lose you.”

It’s a beautiful wedding for everyone but the bride and groom who hate each other’s guts. Blythe Hawthorne is only marrying “Prince” Aris Dryden, aka Fate, to save her father from false imprisonment and the noose. The wedding is taking place at Wisteria Gardens, unusually in autumn and early morning. In an act of defiance, Blythe is wearing her comfortable green slippers which annoys Fate. Good. Fate vows to love and forsake all others for as long as she lives, and Blythe vows to marry him and love him even more when he is sick. Soon they are declared man and wife. Yuck. 

Blythe and Aris have fake smiles plastered on their faces as they greet their guests. Some are a little weird. They’re like puppets walking around, so clearly they are on Aris’s side of the guest list. When Signa reaches her, she asks Blythe to let her know when they return from their honeymoon. Elijah, Blythe’s father, asks his daughter to write to him every week and include a random fact so he knows it’s from her, but if she mentions her mother by name he will come running no matter where she is. He’s also packed a knife in her travel chest. Aww, dad! Soon, but not soon enough for the newlyweds to end the charade, the carriage comes to whisk them away and into married life. 

The carriage however just goes around the corner before heading back, Aris scoffing at the idea of a honeymoon. They will stay at Wisteria Gardens a couple of weeks then leave. This is not what Blythe expected, well, she expected not to ever marry but now she expected a honeymoon and she expected to stay at Wisteria Gardens. When Blythe threatens to stay in the carriage until she has her way, Aris happily gets out and, as the driver is his puppet, he sends his bride on her way. Blythe ends up at the gardens of Thorn Manor, her home. Well, her father’s home, and at her dead mother’s garden. She visits her mother's grave, sad she couldn’t have a few more moments with her. Then Blythe thinks about her brother, also buried in the garden somewhere, and all the terrible, horrible things he did. Suddenly Blythe gets dizzy and the world turns black as she falls to the ground…

…and appears at the front door of Wisteria Gardens. Aris opens the door and is very unimpressed to find his wife on the other side, especially since he sent her to the train station. Blythe corrects him, she was taken to her mother's garden. What? Don’t explain, Aris doesn’t care. As Blythe tries to enter Wisteria, she is magicked back out, but the smugness is smacked off Aris's face when he too is unable to enter. The heat coming from her magical wedding ring and the golden threads connecting them gives Blythe an idea and she tells Aris to carry her over the threshold like a real married couple, a suggestion he scoffs at. It works though and they’re both able to enter Wisteria. Once inside, Blythe goes looking for a bedroom, but unfortunately it’s largely uninhabitable and the room she selects is inhospitable. After struggling out of her wedding clothes by herself, Blythe goes in search of food and finds what is essentially a shrine to Life, Aris’s true love. Her huge portrait is surrounded by candles, and in the picture, she is surrounded by foxes, but her eyes have been cut off. Finding Aris brooding, Blythe asks about food. Impatiently he grabs her and the walls of Wisteria fall away.

They arrive at a midnight lake where there is a table set for two. Aris describes the weird and wonderful food as coming from the most brilliant minds who are horrendously underappreciated. The meal is impeccable but it leaves a bitter taste when Blythe finds out Aris has essentially stolen the food. For the longest time, Aris has only cooked for himself, so the larceny is a treat to start their marriage. Just before they return to Wisteria, Aris informs Blythe she cannot leave it for a month to keep up a pretence of their honeymoon. After, should change her mind about staying, he will show her the world. Blythe wants her freedom and chooses to stay, but Aris allows that she can change her mind. 

One day at Wisteria and Blythe is already questioning her choices because the manor seems to be actively punishing her. It’s so cold and loud as it moans and quivers with the slightest breeze, and salt to the wounds, the sun woke her as there are no curtains in her room. Surprisingly it isn’t Aris who hisses and tries to snap her hand off, but the black fox she helped save several months ago. Investigating Wisteria, Blythe goes to Life’s portrait and to the door woven in it but golden threads bar her entrance and the black fox appears to hiss at her again. Suddenly, Blythe sees a white haired figure down the hall and hears feminine laughter. Is this another hallucination like when she was ill? 

Blythe and the fox follow the figure down the hall, but the deeper they go, the less like Wisteria it is. Eventually they reach a doorway and hear the laughter within. Inside is a bedroom but also a warm glade with a bed carved into the base of a tree. Looking carefully, the glade bedroom is falling apart at the edges, the petals on the bed are dry, the sheets yellowed and the wood rotting. As Blythe looks around, she spots a painting featuring Aris. When she looks at it, she imagines him dancing and hears music, sees him smiling down at her and feels his body. Unfortunately, the fox knocks her out of this illusion. As Blythe leaves, she spots a hand mirror on the vanity that catches her eye and feels familiar. Pocketing the mirror, Blythe returns to her room where she pens a letter to her father pretending she is in Verena, and writes Signa with the truth. 

Letters in hand, Blythe goes in search of somewhere to leave them for Aris to post, but instead, she finds him in the lounge, seemingly in a trance, stitching a long tapestry filled with blues. Blythe watches him until he finishes it and then they have a somewhat civil conversation for them. Aris explains the colors are emotions and he only stitches what the soul tells him, making no deviations. When Blythe asks about her tapistry Aris calls it “one of the most hideous abominations” he’s ever seen, and Blythe takes that to mean it is spectacular. Suddenly Blythe starts to cough, the cold, musty conditions she is living in are making her sick. Condescendingly Aris takes her letters, magicks them to the post and sends her germ-riddled self to bed. When Blythe returns to her room, Aris has given her curtains. 

Blythe tries to find Life’s bedroom again to return the mirror but it’s hidden again, so instead she sits in front of Life’s portrait looking into it, the black fox at her feet. The mirror isn’t made of silver but onyx and as she looks into it, Blythe sees mist swirling behind her and Sylas steps out. Sylas shows himself in his human guise, and in his hand is Blythe’s letter to Signa. He has come to take Blythe to Foxglove for a visit. It’s a strange feeling traveling by Death’s mist and what Blythe finds at Foxglove is equally as strange, her cousin with dark circles under her eyes surrounded by papers. Signa has found a new puzzle to lose herself in, discovering who murdered her mother, and she's looking through her mother's journals to help figure that out. Blythe suggests they take a walk outside because she could use the fresh air and even Sylas looks concerned by Signa’s latest puzzle obsession. 

Together Blythe and Signa walk through the town. It’s like a gothic seaside village with a mismatch of bright colorful buildings with spires and gargoyles atop them. Signa mentions how prolific her mother was at journaling, she’s only up to her seventeenth year and her mother and father have not met while Blythe mentions how stuck she is at Wisteria, and stuck to Aris. Signa starts trying to tell Blythe her suspicions about Life but Blythe’s  wedding ring shines powerfully bright and Signa struggles to speak. Sylas appears concerned for Signa and he suggests Blythe concentrate on the ring. Blythe can feel the thread between her and Aris, even pull at it. She can also tell he is near and stomps to find her husband to give him an earful. Aris isn’t happy that Blythe is at Foxglove and whisks her back to Wisteria. 

In a blink, Blythe is back at Wisteria and just as quickly, she and Aris are fighting. Aris starts to glow and Blythe tells him “burn as brightly as the sun if you wish, Aris, but I will not look away,” which causes the light to blink off and Aris to consider her words. Life said them to him in their first argument. Situation defused, Blythe asks about Life who went by the human name Mila. In the end, they call a truce, both tired of the constant arguments, but it lasts about two minutes as Aris gives Blythe a letter sent by her father. It appears he took her “wish you were here” as an actual invitation to visit and expects a carriage to pick him up in a few days to bring him to Verena which he can’t find on a map. Shouting at each other again, Blythe challenges the ‘all powerful’ Aris. If he can make Elijah Hawthorne believe Verena is real, Blythe will travel with him wherever and whenever he likes with visits to her father when she asks but Aris can not manipulate Elijah’s mind. So long as Blythe understands Aris will do it his way, they have an agreement.

When Aris told Blythe he would make Verena “his way” it wasn’t an invitation for her to make design suggestions, such as hellebore as its national flower, but here they are. They even work well together. While enjoying chicken sandwiches with roasted almonds together, Blythe asks Aris if he loves his magic. After consideration, Aris says he finds great joy in creating and only ever known his magic, so yes; Blythe admits she would love the power but not the work. Suddenly a white haired figure catches Blythe’s eye, the ghost of Life, and she hears music swell. Aris calls Blythe’s name and when she snaps back, he sends her to bed, well, drags her by magical threads to her room and seals her in, planning to finish Verena himself. 

Blythe wakes to a beautifully decorated room that is warm and plush… and she has a lady in waiting to help her get dressed! Wisteria has been transformed to the palace of Verena. She makes her way to breakfast where Aris is waiting with his “parents,” the same magicked people from the wedding. So far though, the people aren’t acting like soulless puppets. It’s not long before Elijah Hawthorne arrives and, much to his consternation, everything is delightful, the food is amazing, his daughter seems happy, Aris is attentive and Verena, when they venture for a walk and gondola ride, is a fairy tale. The hot chocolate is a particular highlight. 

Back at the palace, Elijah claims fatigue from his travels while Aris has a special activity planned for his wife: a dog sled ride and picnic in the forest, once again proving he’s a doting husband to his father in law. The ride is fast and an absolute joy for Blythe. While they sit on the blankets, Blythe and Aris once again agree to their truce, then talk turns to Blythe’s concerns for her father alone at Thorn Grove. Aris can’t appreciate how horrendous society can be and she is sure something is wrong, so Aris agrees Elijah will be spared any burden of their arrangement. Suddenly Blythe cuts her hand on a knife in the picnic basket. Aris grabs it and calls her overly dramatic as there is no cut, but Blythe could swear she hurt her hand. Feeling lightheaded, mostly from seeing the ghost of her husband's dead wife, constantly bickering with said husband, being burdened with memories that aren’t her own, an earworm constantly playing in her mind, living in a musty magical but extremely cold house whilst still recovering from a long illness brought on from being poisoned, and being plagued by sexy dreams, they return to the palace. 

Aris is tired when they return. It takes a lot of energy to maintain all the constructs, illusions and mind control that is Verena. Aris carries Blythe to his room, hers having been broken to not waste his energy, plus they have to maintain the charade that they are a happily married couple. His bedroom is comfortable if plainly decorated with a huge bed which is good because they are sharing. Curtains drawn and lights out, Blythe tries to get ready for bed but her blasted corset isn’t coming off so Aris has to help her and he takes his jolly sweet time. They get into bed together, not touching, but Blythe feels Aris's heat. She’s had a few dalliances in the past but nothing more than kissing or touching. They talk about relationships and Aris adores being involved with and wrapped around a single soul while Blythe resists being controlled or judged. They fall asleep understanding each other a bit better. 

The next morning, Blythe tries to slither out of bed without disturbing Aris, but he, however, finds the whole thing amusing as he’s not in fact in bed, but sitting in a chair drinking tea watching her acrobatics. Aris has created a snowstorm meaning they’re stuck indoors which will limit the number of people he needs to influence in order to ease his tiredness. Elijah joins Aris and Blythe for breakfast and before he can have his first sip of coffee, Blythe interrogates him about what is going on at Thorn Grove. He has been acting suspicious, but he promises it is not her concern. The thorn in his side, Greys, a gentleman's club he has been trying to sell off, has been vandalized. Blythe pushes further but her father does not relent, and Aris defends Blythe, noting she is strong, clever and tenacious, attributes Elijah can’t deny. He compromises stating he will tell her at the Christmas Ball if nothing is resolved, but in the meantime, he would like to get to know his son in law better and proposes a game. 

The game is charades and Aris is not happy, but Blythe is delighted especially at his ‘dog.’ When Aris mimes ‘Waltz,’ Blythe can hear him humming faintly the same song that has plagued her for months. The song fogs her mind, pulling her out of the moment. She can’t get the image of a man and woman waltzing over a bed of autumn leaves from her mind. 

After a week, Elijah returns to Thorn Grove, Blythe desperate for him to stay, desperate for Verena to stay. She doesn’t want to return to the hard bed and drab walls of Wisteria. Aris pulls her inside the building after she says her goodbyes to her father and promises to see him in a week for the Christmas Ball. Aris tells Blythe she’s being stupid and she calls him a troll and a brute. Aris opens the door of Wisteria and shows her that Verena was a real place, just slightly bent to his will. He closes the doors again and then shows her a seaside town, and does it again and again. He can, and will, take them anywhere. At last he opens a door into a forest and they venture outside. As they sit under a huge tree, Blythe broaches the subject of their marriage and its limitations. She basically wants to know if it will be sexless and if they should seek physical gratification elsewhere. The logistics of this is uncertain considering they’re tied together. Aris essentially pounces on a willing Blythe and things move along nicely when Aris suddenly stops and steps away from her. In a blink they are returned to Wisteria and Blythe’s bedroom but it’s not to continue sexy fun times because Aris is calling a full stop. It’s then he spots Life’s mirror. Blythe tries to explain but Aris is too upset that Blythe went into Life’s bedroom and took her things. He orders Blythe to stay away from him. 

For three days Blythe doesn’t see or hear Aris. Food is left for her, but it doesn’t have the Aris flair, and the blasted fox is her only company but it hardly counts when it only hisses at her. Wisteria is trapped in a snowstorm but is thankfully warm, though Blythe is still desperate for something. She goes to the front doors, sees golden threads on the handle and asks the door to take her to Foxglove. It doesn’t work. Then to Thorn Grove. It doesn’t work. To Brude, the real Verena. Nothing. Eventually she asks the door to open to where it wants her to go. The threads snap and Blythe opens the door to her mother's garden. It’s in terrible condition, worse than just the scars from the fire, it’s almost dead and ripped to pieces, and even her mother’s gravestone has been desecrated. Wishing for life to come back to the garden, Blythe is shocked and scared to see that it does. Flowers bloom, frogs croak, and then realization hits Blythe. All those times she accused Signa of bringing the dead back to life, it was her! All the hallucinations and imaginings that felt more like memories, the song that's been playing in her mind… Blythe is who Aris has been searching for. Blythe is Life (with capital L), reincarnated!

Blythe, shoeless, makes the trek to Thorn Grove. She’s able to sneak in because the place is a hubbub of activity with new servants who don’t recognize her preparing for the Christmas Ball. Unfortunately as she ducks into a room on the way to her old suite, she runs into the Butler, Warwick. He’s scandalized that she has no shoes on and is without her husband. Begging him not to tell her father she is there yet, Blythe convinces Warwick to escort her to her old rooms. His first instruction as maids bring water for a bath is to wash her unshod feet. A little while later, Elijah comes home, Warwick having alerted him of his daughter's unshod and husbandless presence. Blythe offers reassurances that she is well and that Aris didn’t hurt her, and says she’s come to help with the ball. Alone again, Blythe pens a letter to Signa begging her to get to Thorn Grove as soon as possible!

Frustratingly Blythe’s abilities don’t work the same as Aris and Sylas’s, she has to actually post her letter to Signa like a peasant. After, she heads to the stable and finds the baby horse she saved but much grown. As she is stroking it, looking at Life’s glow coming from it, a stranger says “you should have known better than to bring it back.” A scandalously dressed woman with flaming red hair sitting atop a haystack introduces herself as Solanine. When Solanine touches Blythe, she gets images of violent deaths of her loved ones. Solanine knows Blythe is Life but is very scant on the details of who she is though Blythe can tell it’s another one… 

Suddenly, Solanine slits Blythe’s throat, which instantly heals due to Life’s magic, but the little blood from the wound is enough to give Solanine pause. She tells Blythe she has Rima’s blood though doesn’t look like her. Rima is Signa’s mother but Blythe keeps her mouth shut about that, especially when Solanine confesses to being the one who killed her. Solanine makes some cryptic statements about Blythe upending the world’s balance and offers her a chance to fix her mess. The hows, whys and whats aren’t provided and a vague timeline is given to right her wrong or there will be absolute chaos. Helpful. Back in Thorn Manor, Elijah is beside himself, the servants have seen a strange tall redhead skulking about and the stable master reports the stables were broken into and Mitra, Blythe’s mother’s horse, was set loose. Chaos has started. 

On Christmas morning, Elijah gifts his daughter a dress to wear for the ball that evening. All day Blythe frets, impatient for Signa’s arrival. Not long before the ball is due to start, Blythe’s hands start to itch uncontrollably. Retreating to her suite, Blythe pulls off her gloves to find her veins turning to ivy and that she is sprouting thorns. She begins to panic and the situation grows worse with more plants growing from her. At last Signa arrives and is eventually able to calm her cousin down and the plant life, Life’s powers, recedes. After giving Blythe a masquerade mask similar to her own, the cousins go down to the ball and instantly run into the bitchy Diana Blackwater who taunts Blythe about being at home without her husband. Neither Signa nor Blythe hold back their cutting responses, but Diana persists and only stops when Aris tells her to shut up. 

Aris takes Blythe to the dance floor and leads her in a waltz . He admits to checking on Blythe the first night she left Wisteria for Thorn Grove, and in the days since they were wrapped around each other under the tree, he's had time to think. His reactions were excessive, he felt Life’s space had been invaded but understands Blythe meant no harm. He also realizes that he overreacted when they were under the tree, he had felt things he’d not felt in a long, long time and it shocked him. He’d like to finish where he’d foolishly left off. Aris whispers this close to Blythe’s ear and because tonight seems to be the night of shocking behavior and she feels like she is burning from Aris’s heat, she kisses him in the middle of the dance floor as everyone watches on. When they part, Blythe sees a flash of red hair behind a fox mask, goes dizzy and passes out. 

Aris, Signa, and Elijah are all talking at once when Blythe wakes up to Sylas looking down at her. He’s not there to take her, thank goodness, only to check she is okay. Flashes of memories as Life being friends with Sylas go through Blythe’s mind and Sylas is no longer frightening, but a friend. When the rest of the room realizes Blythe is awake, there is a volley of questions and accusations of poisoning start again. The room makes Blythe sick to the stomach, she nearly died several times in it, and Aris, realizing this, picks up his wife and carries her back to Wisteria using his magic door trick. Wisteria is decked out for the holiday, the fire is blazing and there are three stockings hanging above the fireplace, one with an A, another with a B and the third, a little smaller, with a B and a paw print. The fox, named Beastly after Blythe, has her own stocking. After sitting for a few minutes talking, Aris tells Blythe he has something to give her. 

Aris carries Blythe upstairs to a stark white room. He motions to a canvas an easel and tells her to paint whatever she wants to fill this room, which is hers and hers alone. After some consideration, Blythe paints the perfect library, complete with walls covered in books she never knew she needed, a sofa piled high with pillows next to a huge picture window, and a starry night sky beyond. Blythe gets paint on her and Aris teases her about it, so she spreads some on him. This leads to a play fight, which leads to intense looks and touching, and Aris putting his brutish mouth to good use. Smugly, Aris wishes Blythe a Merry Christmas and tells her to enjoy her library. They’ll have plenty of time when she’s feeling better to mutually corrupt each other. 

A few days later, wide awake in her library, Blythe, frustrated with seeing Mila’s ghost and getting fragments of memory, challenges her. Instantly pain assaults her head and she forces herself not to scream out loud and alert Aris. Blythe sees Mila sitting in a forest and is invited to join her. They take each other's hands as they sit, a ball of soil between their hands. Mila encourages Blythe to feed her magic into the soil and a little creature emerges, along with others popping up in the forest. As the little creatures play, Mila explains they are souls. She creates life, Aris creates their fate and Sylas will return the souls to the soil. Now and then the souls pop in a spark of gold as they are being born into the world. Mila warns that there are other beings in the world and explains that Solanine is Chaos. Blythe has upset the balance by doing the one thing Life should never do, bring a soul back from the dead. Blythe insists the foal was barely dead, but Mila tells her to think on it. Mila also tells Blythe she will no longer bother her, but she is with her, a small fragment of their soul. Mila is the origin, Blythe is their future and she is happy Aris has found them. Blythe protests about Mila’s vague cryptic messages, but too late, she’s returned to her library. 

Blythe goes in search of Aris who is in his weaving room, tapestries being woven and unwoven in a beautifully organized dance around him, the threads seemingly coming from nowhere. Aris warns Blythe not to touch the threads as she will experience the souls’ whole lives in a few seconds and she won’t feel right in her body after. He takes her to the back of the room where an abomination of a tapestry is laid out on a desk. Its edges are disfigured and frayed, the threads start as black and move to silver with no other colors existing in between, and though new stitches are being added, it doesn’t grow any longer. In a bid to work out what has been going on at Thorn Grove, Aris found this tapestry but has no idea who it belongs to. Blythe touches it and feels nothing but then gets a sharp pain in her stomach. Soon she’s coughing, bloody from sores in her mouth. She can taste Belladonna. She whispers, it’s Chaos.

A doctor and Elijah come to Wisteria, the doctor declares Blythe stable and Elijah insists she return to Thorn Grove to get better, a notion Aris resoundingly won’t let happen. Aris promises Blythe will get better and Elijah is persuaded to go home. Once alone, Blythe asks to see Signa and Aris agrees to call her but not until that evening, for now, he insists Blythe give him the day. She agrees and asks Aris to take her somewhere, to show her something only he can. He takes her to a small farmhouse where a man is working in a shed. As the man works, he sings and has the voice of an angel, bringing tears to Blythe’s eyes. Aris explains this man could enrapture the world with his voice but is too scared to take the risk, but that he is content with his life here. Aris does not want to be scared of taking that next step with Blythe and she the same. Before they are naked, Aris transports them back to his bedroom at Wisteria. 

Later, Blythe, Signa, Aris and Sylas  try to figure out Solanine’s ultimatum. Though still resentful of his brother, Aris is beginning to forgive Sylas who has ever only wanted to help. Blythe has explained about Solanine and what happened in the stable, but not about the fact that she is Life reincarnated. Together Aris and Sylas go hunting for Solanine. Though Aris and Solanine had a thing for a few months centuries ago, before Mila, Sylas knows Solanine way better as he’s always cleaning up after her chaos. Solanine is in a Finishing School watching twin sisters turn on each other. Aris stops time so they can converse and prevents a book from hitting its target, one of the girls’ faces. Solanine refuses to help them, telling them Blythe must work out herself how to right the imbalance. She also tells them if it weren’t for Rima’s blood in her she would not even have been given that chance. Aris and Sylas exchange a look and don’t correct Blythe’s parentage. As Solanine won’t give them anything, only delight in Aris’ fears for his wife (a fact she did not know), they leave, but not before Sylas nudges the book to make it miss its mark.

Signa is amazed by Blythe’s library. Neither cousin looks well, Signa has been obsessing over her mother’s journals and found pages missing, stained and illegible. She knows her mother was involved in the paranormal, but not how or what or who, though Sylas has said there are others out there like him and Fate, Time and Dreams, for instance, but Blythe interrupts and tells her it is Chaos. Chaos killed Signa’s mother and is threatening Blythe now. Signa was able to find in the journals a reference to Amity, a friend of Rima’s who died by drowning but then she was alive and well later. Signa spoke to her ghost at Foxglove (see book 2) and knows she died the same night of the mass death at Foxglove. The journals also speak of a friend she met at Finishing School, Sol, but they had a falling out. Sol is Chaos, Rima must have brought Amity back to life and Chaos killed everyone for doing so. It seems they only need to kill the foal to stop Chaos, which is far too easy, but still, they make plans to head to Thorn Grove. 

Blythe, Signa, and Sylas head to the foal, Blythe seeing it shining silver and feeling possessive over it. Sylas takes off one of his gloves and touches the horse, but it does not die. Blythe tries, but again nothing happens. The light from the horse radiates only for Blythe and suddenly she stumbles back, seeing her mother's garden and wanting to be buried in the soil but forcing herself not to succumb to the desire. Then she falls into Life’s memories. She sees Mila and Aris dancing, Mila wanting to die but Aris and Sylas making a pact to keep her alive, causing Chaos to go wild with plagues and destruction. Then she sees her mother again, chasing a little boy in Thorn Grove, a figure in a fox mask with flaming red hair looks at her before being surrounded by shadow as Blythe is being pulled back into herself by Aris and Sylas. Before she can become fully conscious, Blythe is sucked down into the darkness. 

Blythe knows she is dying from Belladonna poisoning, she may not have ingested any of the berries, but she knows intimately what it feels like and this has Chaos’s brand of “fun” written all over it. Feeling like there is something in her hallucinations of her mother, Blythe first asks Aris to check on her father. Once he is gone, Blythe tells Signa and Sylas that if she dies to never reveal to Aris her connection to Life. Once alone with only Beastly for company, she and the fox get out of bed and go to Wisteria’s front doors. She tells the doors not to play games and to take her to Thorn Grove. 

Aris finds Elijah at the vandalized Grey’s, his father in law heartily sick of the gentlemen’s club. They have a frank conversation, Elijah having worked out that Verena is not real and suspects Aris is not a Prince. Aris confirms both but does not say he is Fate. Elijah is satisfied and tells him to take care of Blythe at which Aris honestly agrees. Pausing time, Aris looks at the threads of the people who have been in Grey’s and finds one with silver interwoven. Strange.

Back at Wisteria, Aris takes down Mila’s portrait, ready to stop chasing a memory and embrace his new wife fully. He then goes to his tapestry room and tries different ways of destroying the abomination, but nothing works. He then goes to Blythe’s room only to find Signa and Sylas, but no Blythe. Signa tells Aris she is gone, that she went out through the front door but seems to have disappeared completely. Terror and suspicion flood Aris and he goes back to the tapestry room to look at Blythe’s tapestry. It’s fully silver now and he can hear familiar music coming from it. Embracing it, Aris knows Blythe is Life reincarnated. Signa tells him Blythe opened the front doors to Thorn Grove. 

Blythe sneaks around Thorn Grove, not sure what time it is or who might be about. She finds a dark hooded figure skulking about and going into her mother’s room. Blythe cautiously follows, grabbing a fire poker to subdue the figure. When she opens the door, she swings the poker and actually hits someone. The figure falls to the floor, and what she can see is that they're wearing ill-fitting and stolen clothes, and the room clearly shows the person has been squatting there. Blythe needs to know who it is so she pulls the hood away, but stumbles back as the figure greets her. She tries to run for the door but they catch her. Blythe tries to fight them, but they tell her to calm down, they’ll let her go if she doesn’t scream. Once free, Blythe turns to the figure and greets her “dead” brother Percy.

Percy looks off and feels as cold as ice. He says he feels worms and insects under his skin, nothing is right. Percy was the one responsible for the destruction in her mother’s garden as he clawed his way from the ground, and she works out that he was brought back to life after her first trip to the garden around when she and Aris were married, when she first noticed her powers. Blythe can’t forget nor forgive him for the months of torture he caused her. If it weren’t for Signa giving Blythe Percy’s life, she would be dead. Blythe takes Percy’s hand and tries to heal him, but as she does, her fingers turn grey. Percy is still angry over their father tossing away his rightful legacy, Grey's, so obviously he is the one responsible for vandalizing the club. Suddenly a flash of light announces Sylas and Signa’s arrival. Sylas has his scythe out and is ready to use it, but Blythe shouts at him to stop. Signa is stunned by what Blythe has done. 

Aris wants to kill Percy, but won’t at Blythe’s insistence. When he looks at his wife properly, he sees how ill she is and that she is nearing death. Sylas won’t go against Blythe’s wishes, not after what happened last time, and will help her die when she needs him to. Signa however has no such compunction and swallows some belladonna berries to enter her reaper state, trying to reap Percy, but it does not work because he is tied to Blythe just like the foal. 

Chaos arrives to the party then, gleeful. She points out that a sacrifice is needed to rectify things and not one of a puny little mortal. She also notices Signa and realizes she is actually Rima’s daughter. Blythe tells Percy what she really thinks of him and that she does not forgive him. Percy, the little shitstain, who has soiled himself in fear, escapes through the window. Signa whispers to Aris that he is a deity, he can save Blythe, pointedly looking towards Chaos, she tells him two birds with one stone and Aris understands. Aris turns to his wife, promises her he will take care of Elijah and then goes after Percy while Sylas and Signa take Blythe back to Wisteria. 

Percy has stolen a horse from the stable and fled to the garden. He tries to hide from Aris, but Fate can see all the threads of the world and easily sees Percy cowering. Grabbing the worm, he curses Percy to never return, never see his sister again, never be comforted by anyone familiar. People will look away from him, shut their doors in his face, the world will never be charitable to him. With every breath, he will remember Fate. Aris then takes the horse, wishes Percy well, and leaves. 

When Aris returns to Wisteria, it is in Blythe's last moments with Signa and Sylas by her side. Aris holds his wife and kisses her one final time. Blythe can feel the heat of Aris go as she is pulled under a river, but she can still hear Aris, Signa, and Sylas talking. Aris is giving his immortal life to Blythe so that she may live on. He promises that he will see them again. Sylas takes his brother's hands in his, and life leaves Aris. Blythe is released by the river and holds Aris close, telling him how foolish he is. 

Blythe falls into a depression, wanting an empty Wisteria with Beastly, or letting the thorns and vines root her to the ground. Elijah comes by every day to bring her food. He doesn’t push, only sits and tells her stories of her mother. After weeks, Blythe opens the doors to him, then he starts to breathe color into Wisteria, painting murals on the walls which Blythe helps with. Months go by after Aris’s death and one night, when Sylas makes his regular silent visit to check on her, Blythe asks to see Signa, and in a blink, they are at Foxglove. Signa looks so much better, no longer consumed by her mother's journals now that she knows who her killer is, though she is confused that her father isn’t mentioned until their wedding day and about the story behind Solanine. They reluctantly agree they can do nothing about Chaos, it would only invite her back, and she is already curious about Signa. Instead Blythe asks them to teach her about her powers. She will no longer sit idly waiting for Aris’s return. She wants to show him her abilities and tell him her adventures. 

For twenty-seven years, Blythe learns her powers and travels the world, building stories she will one day share with Aris. Adding to them are ghost stories about Thorn Grove and the witch at Wisteria. At Signa’s urging, Blythe creates a briar maze to stop people disturbing her and Elijah. One day as Blythe is making little soul creatures like those Mila showed her, Elijah watching on with a fox kit on his lap, the foxes become restless. Blythe runs to Wisteria’s front door and sees the smallest golden thread on the doorknob. She tells the doors to take her to her husband and the doors open to Brude where a man is waiting for her.